Wandering around Aquileia: Romans remains, Unesco heritage sites and sundials (ENG)

As promised, we’re back!

This time we’ll talk about Aquileia, one of the most important and largest archeological sites of northern Italy. The archaeological area and the Patriarchal Basilica of Aquileia were reasonably listed as world heritage sites by UNESCO. 

Let’s go in order. 

We took some days off for Ale’s birthday and we decided to go on a trip to Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

We left home on saturday 13th February at about 10 o’ clock (to be honest we took it easy) and, after a brief stop at an Autogrill, we arrived at the B&B at 2 p.m. We stayed in a Bed&Breakfast which offers very cozy room at a very reasonable price: casaDisma, we had slept there once before, coming back home from Bled and we had really enjoyed our stay, so we decide to stop there again.

Since that day the weather was clement (the following ones would be very ugly instead), we decided to go to the Basilica on foot: next to the B&B there’s the Via Sacra (Sacred Road) which runs besides the ancient Roman harbour, walk till the end of this road and you’ll reach the Basilica. The first thing that will catch your attention is certainly the Roman forum whose colonnade can also be seen driving on the main road. If you’d like to see how Aquileia was supposed to be in the past, then take a look here. 

The Basilica seen from the Via Sacra

Inside the Basilica 

We went inside the Basilica whose floor is wholly covered by mosaics, if you go down the stairs near the presbytery you can also see the crypt of the frescoes, while outside there’s the War cemetery.

With a 3 euros-ticket you can also visite the South Hall (Südhalle), next to the Baptistery, where the Peacock mosaic is set (note that is was made visible only in 2011).

Once ended our tour we stopped at the pastry shop Mosaico to have a sweet break, this is a lab where you can also eat one of their fanciful pastries, drink a hot chocolate (one of their specialities) or a good coffee (roasted by them since 2015).

For dinner we went to the Roadhouse set in the brand new shopping centre Tiare in Villesse where you can find even an Ikea shop.

We came back early and, the following dai, we woke up at 9, it was Valentine’s Day, quite a rainy day. We decided to have breakfast at Panetteria Sandrigo, a bakery and café; there you can try some typical sweets, we reccomend in particular the famous “gubana” with raisin and grappa (we tasted them for the first time in Cividale) or the “strucchi” both fried or cooked in the oven.

It was always pouring down, however the rain didn’t stop us as we decided to visit Aiello del Friuli, Paese delle Meridiane (Sundials town): in fact it has recently become popular for his sundials, painted on the buildings walls in the last few years. We took a few photos to some of them, we discovered then that they are more than 60! Check them out here, so that you may follow the itinerary and find all of them.

Two of the many beautiful sundials in Aiello

In the afternoon we visited Udine, we liked it very much but we’ll talk about it in another post, maybe with Trieste (we were there on Monday 15^th), how about that?

Palmanova by night

Let’s continue with the Fortress Town of Palmanova, about 20 kilometres far from Aquileia. Palmanova is unique thanks to its nine-pointed star structure, conceived as an inexpugnable defensive system and built by order of the Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia in 1593. It has 3 city gates.

The hexagonal Piazza Grande is the town core: here you can find the Duomo and the main streets which departs from evry single side of this square, at its centre there’s the standard, symbol of the fortress.

The star structure Photo © Repubblica.it

We visited it last year during the day, this time we went there in the evening to eat something special: we strongly recommend the Caffetterie Torinese, an historic café set in Piazza Grande.

On Monday 15^th we visited  Miramare Castle and Trieste, but we’ll talk later about them…

On Tuesday is high time to go home, but before leaving we decided to visit the distillery Aquileia in order to buy some bottles of “Sgnapa del Checo” (a local grappa, an alcoholic beverage that you can find in the northern and central Italy) and some spirits for our friends and relatives. According to all our friends the Sgnapa is exceptional, and so is the Ovo, a spirit made with eggs.

If you’d like to buy some, just ring the bell of the wooden building near the distillery: there you’ll find their shop.

Distilleria Aquileia 

Coming back home we had a walk in two medieval hamlet: Strassoldo, with its two castels (di Sopra and di Sotto) and Clauiano, the both of them not too far from Palmanova.

We arrived in Caravaggio at 7.30 pm after having driven for 1000 km overall.

Least, but not last we would like to tell you something about two other towns.

The first one is Cividale del Friuli, we had been there last year on our way back from Bled for seeing the famous Devil’s Bridge. It was 24^th April 2015, a beautiful sunny day.

In 2011 its Longobard Temple was registered in the UNESCO World Heritage list, but its most representative symbol is the Devil’s Bridge, suspended on the Natisone, from there you can take some nice photos of the town.

The legend goes that the devil would have facilitate the construction of the bridge in return for the souls of the person who would have crossed the bridge first, but Cividale’s inhabitants fooled him by making an animal (a cat or a dag) crossing it first.

The Devil's Bridge

In Cividale we tried the strucchi for the first time, we even take a lot of them back home for our parents!

Grado, back in April 2015

Finally if you’re staying in during Aquileia in summer, than you can’t do without visiting Grado, an isle connected to the mainland with a 10 km-long bridge. In Grado you would find some Roman remains and a lot of restaurants serving some very good fish.

If you’re going to visit the whole region, than you make considering buying the FGV Card, a pass which gives you a discount on many museums and sightseeing sites. Here you can find some more information.

If you’re passionate about cycling you’ll love to see the Ciclovia Alpe AdriaRadweg, a road for cyclists which pass through Aquileia connecting it to Grado and Udine and eventually lets you go from Salzburg to Grado in about a week.

Here ends our post on Aquileia and its surroundings, as usual you’ll find our top three below.

What about you? Would you like to visit Aquileia? Will you try the Sgnapa del Checco?

Talk to you soon!

Ale and Jessy